Reports over recent months had suggested that Bungie was in very real danger of being hit with another round of mass layoffs, and unfortunately, that has indeed happened. The PlayStation-owned studio has announced that it is eliminating another 220 jobs, having already cut around 100 roles in another round of layoffs last year.
That’s roughly 17 percent of the studio’s total workforce, though that is not the extent of changes at Bungie. Though the company had maintained an unprecedented level of autonomy within PlayStation since its acquisition, some reports had claimed that Bungie was in danger of losing its independent subsidiary status within Sony, and it seems those changes are now coming into effect.
In a statement published on the official Bungie website, CEO Pete Parsons has said that the studio will be “deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment”, which will see around 155 roles from Bungie being (or approximately 12 percent of the workforce) being moved over to PlayStation over the course of the next few quarters.
“SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force,” Parsons writes.
Additionally, Bungie and PlayStation are also spinning off a new first-party studio to work on one of the former’s incubation projects- a new science-fantasy action IP. Read more on that through here.
In his update, Parsons went on to talk about what has necessitated this new round of layoffs and reduction of roles in the first place, admitting that the studio was “overly ambitious”, while also citing other factors such as economic conditions, the blip that was Destiny 2: Lightfall, and more.
“For over five years, it has been our goal to ship games in three enduring, global franchises,” Parsons said. “To realize that ambition, we set up several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams. We eventually realized that this model stretched our talent too thin, too quickly. It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development – Destiny and Marathon.
“Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion ran headlong into a broad economic slowdown, a sharp downturn in the games industry, our quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to ensure both projects deliver at the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red.
“After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed, and we did everything we could to avoid today’s outcome. Even with exhaustive efforts undertaken across our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were simply not enough.
“As a result, today we must say goodbye to incredible talent, colleagues, and friends.”
In total, Bungie’s workforce will stand at roughly 850 following this round of significant changes and layoffs, down from around 1,300 previously. Parsons says work on Destiny and Marathon is continuing apace.